Professor Christopher Foot

Abstract:

We predict the resonance-enhanced magnetic field dependence of atom-dimer relaxation and three-body recombination rates in a Rb87 Bose-Einstein condensate close to 1007 G. Our exact treatments of three-particle scattering explicitly include the dependence of the interactions on the atomic Zeeman levels. The Feshbach resonance distorts the entire diatomic energy spectrum, causing interferences in both loss phenomena. Our two independent experiments confirm the predicted recombination loss over a range of rate constants that spans four orders of magnitude. © 2007 The American Physical Society.

Abstract:

We manipulate a Bose-Einstein condensate using the optical trap created by the diffraction of a laser beam on a fast ferroelectric liquid crystal spatial light modulator. The modulator acts as a phase grating which can generate arbitrary diffraction patterns and be rapidly reconfigured at rates up to 1 kHz to create smooth, time-varying optical potentials. The flexibility of the device is demonstrated with our experimental results for splitting a Bose-Einstein condensate and independently transporting the separate parts of the atomic cloud. © 2006 The American Physical Society.